Folk Column: Kris almighty

I’ve been struggling for weeks now to figure out why Van Morrison, Emmylou Harris and Glen Campbell are running for election in the Midlands. I didn’t even know that it was a constituency! Actually, I’m talking about the Midlands Music Festival, unfolding in the balmy idyll of Ballinlough Castle, Co Westmeath (see special feature elsewhere in this issue).
Kris Kristofferson has turned 70, and although there is no new album to mark the occasion, there is a compilation, The Pilgrim: A Celebration of Kris Kristofferson, which features readings from the Kristofferson canon by some of his best known peers and some of the finest talents working in contemporary country. The collection features close friends Rosanne Cash ([‘Lovin’ Him Was Easier’), Willie Nelson (‘The Legend’), Jessi Colter (‘The Captive’) and Shooter Jennings (‘The Silver Tongued Devil & Me’) old friends like Marshall Chapman (‘Jesus Was A Capricorn’), Emmylou Harris (‘The Pilgrim: Chapter 33’), Texans in Rodney Crowell (‘Come Sundown’) and Bruce Robison & Kelly Willis (‘Help Me Make It Through The Night’) and fellow Music Row rebels and refugees Todd Snider (‘Maybe You Heard’), Shawn Camp (‘Why Me’) and Gretchen Wilson (‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’) as well as some odd tributes like Russell Crowe’s take on ‘Darby’s Castle’. Also marking the occasion are a couple of classic re-issues including versions on both CD and DVD of Kristofferson’s classic appearance on the Austin City Limits TV show.
A well-known glutton for punishment in concert, Bruce Springsteen and The Seeger Sessions Band will be coming back to the Point on Friday 17 November and Saturday 18 November 2006 and the Odyssey Arena, Belfast on the 21 November, having just recently finished a European tour which saw him play the Point during May to a sell out audience. The concert, which received rave reviews, was nothing short of transcendent and served to reinforce an already brimming fan base in Ireland. Tickets are limited to four per person and even with their stellar pricing I can’t imagine they’ll last too long.
The ‘Return To Camden festival’, the UK’s flagship traditional Irish festival returns to – where else? – Camden in London for its eighth year on Friday October 21. This year features an even stronger line-up of musicians, artists and teachers.
Taking place over the course of 10 packed days, some of the finest traditional musicians, singers and dancers from Ireland, Britain and the USA will entertain and teach in a programme of concerts, ceilis, workshops, sessions and talks.
The initial line-up has just been announced and artists confirmed so far include Máirtin O’Connor, Cathal Hayden and Garry O’Briain, John Carty, Francis Gaffney, Alec Finn, Sliabh Notes, The Mort Kelleher Ceili Band, Pádraig and Roisin McEneany, The Tap Room Trio, Liz Carroll and John Doyle, Cherish the Ladies, Brian Kelly the London Lasses and Pete Quinn.
In what is becoming a bit of a tradition for Return to Camden Town, this year’s festival will also see the launch of some great albums. The London Lasses and Pete Quinn will be launching their third album on the opening night – Friday 20 October – and banjo and mandolin maestro Brian Kelly will be launching his second solo album on Monday 23.
At First Light – essentially John McSherry and Dónal O’Connor – is embarking on an Irish tour in the wake of the fanstic critical response to their album Tripswitch. For the tour the core duo will be augmented by Francis McIlduff, Alan Burke and current ‘Asturian Traditional Musician of the Year’ Ruben Bada.
Some of the plaudits have been racking up the superlatives and, with commentators like Geoff Wallis opining, “If there’s a better Irish album released in 2006 I’ll willingly dance naked in Trafalgar Square with a ferret on my head”, there will be a lot to live up to live.
While a couple of the dates are in August – the tour starts off with an August 1 show in Donegal’s Ionad Cois Locha before visiting the Brantry in Tyrone August 5 and there is a show in Monaghan’s Market House on August 31 – the bulk of the tour is in the second half of September with this phase kicking off with a show in Dundalk’s Spirit Store on September 15 and shows in Barrys of Grange, Galway, Belfast, Dublin and Ennis, following in fairly short order afterwards.
Flook have been keeping it quiet (well quiet for Flook) recently but as well as building up their collection of friends on myspace (www.myspace.com/2flutes in case you’re wondering) they’ve been busy filling up their calendar as well and there will be a few sightings in this neck of the woods with appearances pencilled in for the World Fleadh on August 19 and Portglenone’s Gig 'N' The Bann on September 2 as well as a slot at Belfast’s Open House festival on October first.
The full line up for the Open House extravaganza has yet to be announced and we can but hope that it matches the wonderful array of musical talent that Kieran Gilmore managed to pull together last time out.b